


Borrow Hope to Understand

by TheOceanIsMyInkwell



Series: A Little Unsteady [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Action, Aliens, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Peter Parker, Bisexual Tony Stark, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gay Ned Leeds, Gen, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Interwebs is talked about in chapter 1, Kidnapping, M/M, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter swears a lot, Religious Conflict, Religious Discussion, Tony Has Issues, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, actual Interwebs takes place in chapter 2, actual content is heavier and angstier than it appears, don't be fooled by the summary, i feel like i used the words 'swing' and 'webbed' a lot, i lied the second chapter is pure fluff your teeth will rot, i'll add more tags when chapter 2 goes up, this is the first time i've written action in like a decade, what do you expect it's KC projecting all over the place, would you look at that i finally made them hug again for the second time in this entire series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-07-27 22:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16228352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/pseuds/TheOceanIsMyInkwell
Summary: Tony may not be crying, but the warble of his voice tells a different story when he speaks up again. “He was good for me. And he wasgood. He was the one who helped me understand I didn’t have to throw away what I believed in because of what I had with him. I mean, granted, it took me probably another decade at that point to actually get it, but at least he got the hammer going in my thick skull.”“You do have a thick skull sometimes,” Peter grumbles.“I take offense at that, Underoos. I have a thick skull all the time.”Tony can practically hear the eye-roll in the kid’s tone. “I wonder sometimes what I idolized in you as a kid.”“A question for you to answer, kid, not me. I’m just the washed-up has-been engineer playing with million-dollar titanium alloy toys in his tower.”“I would love to take a dissertation to your face with, like, ninety-five theses on why you’rewrong,” Peter retorts, “but I’m more invested in the story. Why did you...why do you say you didn’t have to throw away everything you believed in?”---Tony helps Peter in more ways than he'll ever know to come to grips with his sexuality and his feelings about Ned.





	1. Storm Break on Me

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This one’s been stewing in my brain for ages. The idea got special life breathed into it ever since I wrote Take an Angel by the Wings, in which I explored what I imagined to be May’s return to faith (specifically, Catholicism) after losing Ben. I wanted to portray a Peter who lost his own faith as a result of the same event, and juxtapose that with a Tony who, despite being beaten down and broken many times, still clings to some religious beliefs for motives unknown to everyone else. You could say this is just another self-indulgent foray into subversion of tropes, but I can’t help it. Peter may be young and innocent in many ways, but that doesn’t preclude the possibility of him also being jaded.
> 
> Also, I would be lying if I said I haven’t been toying around with the idea of Tony sharing something about his past with Peter that he hasn’t shared with anybody else. Eep. Gets me right in the feels.
> 
> The Ned/Peter is only mentioned/discussed in this chapter. Actual Interwebs interaction takes place in Part 2.
> 
> This can be read as a companion piece to [Take an Angel by the Wings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15866580), which talks about May’s religious experience after Ben’s death and discovering that Peter is Spider-Man. You don’t need to read that oneshot to understand this one, but it would certainly complete the experience. :)
> 
> Title inspiration for Part 1: [“Oh Brother” by Cyrus Reynolds & Gregg Lehrman ft. Novo Amor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N2QQ7WR_pE)
> 
> Theme song and title inspiration for this fic and Part 2: [“Untitled” by Paper Route](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qsOusYXuJM)

Peter knows Tony’s standing behind him before the man even opens his mouth to speak. He doubts that stealth was ever Tony’s purpose, but it surprises the boy, still, how quietly his mentor ascended to the roof and took measured steps toward him without saying a word.

“Spider-babies probably get pneumonia from standing out in all this rain. Lack of thermoregulation and all that.”

Peter continues to swing his legs over the edge. “Spiders don’t have lungs,” he says without turning around, and he can already picture Tony’s left eyebrow shooting up.

“No,” Tony concedes. “But you do.”

Peter picks up on the rise and fall of Tony’s chest as the man finally approaches near enough to crouch just beside him. Why Tony decides to squat instead of taking the comfortable seat just to his left, Peter doesn’t know. Perhaps he prefers to keep both feet on solid ground.

Peter could laugh to himself at that. Iron Man, inventor of flying titanium alloy fighting suits, preferring to stay on the ground.

It certainly says something to Peter that Tony’s heart isn’t galloping out of his chest at the mere sight of the kid balanced casually on the edge of the roof of a cathedral. He ponders that for a moment in silence to himself. It feels foreign, almost daunting, to be on the receiving end of that kind of trust.

“Wanna tell me why you’re not answering your aunt’s texts?”

Peter bites his lip and unsticks his left hand from the stone shingle to fish around for his phone. He holds it out halfway, as if expecting Tony not to actually take it. He’s right.

“I texted her,” Peter says, looking up at Tony in the eyes for the first time.

Tony’s gaze flits down noncommittally to the StarkPhone and then back up to the boy’s face. The kid shrugs and reaches back to place the phone somewhere behind him.

“You texted ‘ _I’m fine and I’ll be home before curfew_ ’,” Tony quotes at him. “Now I’m not usually pedantic, but by Wordy Italian Aunt’s definition, that is not texting back.”

Peter runs the tip of his canine tooth again over his bottom lip. He could pierce it if he bit down on just the right pressure point, he thinks. He’s almost forgotten what his own blood tastes like. His mind swerves clear of the endpoint of that thought process and directs his gaze instead to the toes of his high-tops. The narrowest bit of his shoelace is wider than the honey yellow blur of the taxi cab below.

Tony lets out something like a huff. “I always wondered how you could stick to stuff in the rain. You...you _can_ stick in the rain, right?”

In answer, Peter lifts his left hand again and proffers it to Tony, palm facing up. Tony shifts from his crouch to sit on his bottom next to the kid and takes the offered hand without a question. He brings it up to eye level. Frowns.

“Look again,” Peter whispers. As he speaks, he wills his sticking powers to activate.

Tony squints harder--and then starts, almost dropping Peter’s hand in his lap. “Holy…”

“A little creepy, huh?”

Tony throws him a dry look. Years of attention in the public limelight have taught his facial expressions to be swift and resilient, if nothing else. “I think _creepy_ used to describe you is definitely stretching it. But having actual extendable spider hairs on your fingertips isn’t exactly children’s book material.”

“I think of them more as barbs, actually.” Peter wiggles his fingers in front of Tony’s face and lets his mouth lift upward in a lopsided smirk. “ _Hairs_ sounds a little too soft for what they actually feel like.”

“You can’t actually scratch people with that, can you?”

Peter’s face turns a worrisome shade of contemplative at the jest. “Not that I’ve tried…”

“Stop that. You’re a Hufflepuff.”

Peter rolls his eyes. He sticks his hand to the bicep of the nanotech Iron Man suit.

“Get off me, Underoos.”

Peter’s half-smile morphs into a full-grown grin at the mixed message contained in the nickname, which Tony only ever utters in moments of ultimate fondness.

“I’m serious. Next time I’m going on a dinner date with T’Challa, I’m stealing his sister to design me a Spidey-sticky-proof metal alloy. Then who’ll be the one falling on his butt when he tries to embarrass me for Twitter?”

“The sticky video was for Instagram,” Peter corrects him, pulling back with his classic squinty-eyed offended look. “Jeez, not everyone’s main social media platform is the same as yours, Mr. Stark.”

Tony levels him with a look. “ _Spidey_ may be all about Insta-hoot but I know for a fact that Peter Parker lurks all over my Twitter.”

The flush that rises unbidden like a tide from Peter’s neck to the tip of his ears is enough of an answer for him.

Tony shrugs off Peter’s hand from his bicep, but decides to soften the gesture by laying his arm across the kid’s right shoulder. It’s swift and casual, and he’s careful not to press his hand too close to the boy. His forearm--up to his wrist--making contact with Peter is enough emotional vulnerability for one rainy evening, thank you very much.

“So.” He clears his throat. “Explanations for not texting Aunt May. Perching up on the roof of a church like a pigeon. General over-the-top teenage shadiness. Go.”

Peter turns to the side and rummages with something crinkly hidden there by the billowiness of his hoodie. “Donut?”

Tony stares at the frosted french cruller in the kid’s hand. What the hell? And on that note, he decides, what the hell. He grabs the offered pastry and chomps on it. “Gotta say your taste in snacks has gotten classy, but you’re still evading.”

“Like a pro?” says Peter hopefully.

“No,” says Tony. “ _Not_ like a pro. If you were a pro, you’d be polishing off these donuts while decked out in your Spidey suit. Which, by the way, you should _not_ do, because I know just how much you love those powdered monstrosities.”

Peter squints, once again offended. “You love powdered jelly donuts too.”

“Yes, but I have a metal suit, not a spandex one.”

“Which conveniently goes in the wash, Mr. Stark.”

“I’m actually appalled that May lets you do the laundry. You know nothing about removing powdered sugar stains.”

“And _you_ do because--?”

Tony gestures airily with his free hand. “Not the point of this conversation right now. Stop stalling and tell me why the hell you’re on top of a church roof and getting your aunt worried. And make it quick, so I can go back to my Project Runway episode. I was just getting through Season 5.”

On second thought, it was probably a poor decision on Tony’s part to name-drop one of Peter’s favorite classic shows as a means to get him to focus on the topic at hand. Thankfully, however, Peter gets the hint and gives a dutiful bob of his head.

“May wanted to go to mass this afternoon.”

Tony cocks his head so suddenly that Peter can practically hear the bones creaking. “So you decided to go to church...on top of the church.”

Peter sighs, long and hard and a little painful through his nose. “I happen to like the view from here, regardless of it being a church.”

“Hngh.” Tony tosses back an aborted nod. “Even when it’s raining.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question. Questions don’t work as well with Peter Parker as rambled observations do.

“Yeah.”

“I guess you do get a fantastic birds’-eye map of the city without having to exert the effort of flying,” Tony admits. “Or in your case, swinging around.”

See? He understands.

“Jeez, kid,” Tony tacks on in a mutter. “I don’t even know how your arms take all the abuse, day after day. At this rate, you shouldn’t have shoulders anymore.”

Peter jostles him in the side with a nudge. He swoops over to bite off a sizable chunk of the remaining french cruller in Tony’s hand. “Gotta stick to my brand, Mr. Stark.”

“What, being an extra little shit? You do that all by yourself without the spandex, y’know.”

Peter scratches his eyebrow with a middle finger.

“Very mature, Parker.”

“Says the guy who promotes eating powdered donuts in an Iron Man suit.”

“You know, there was a time Peter Parker actually respected me. Today is no longer that time.”

“I mean...” Peter’s head flops against his mentor’s shoulder. “...You’re not _wrong_.”

“’Course I’m not.” A pair of sunglasses materialize out of nowhere--nanonites, probably--and Tony whips them on with perfect timing. “I’m Tony Stark. I’m always right.”

“Oof, I’m so disappointed Mr. Rhodey and Ms. Potts aren’t around to hear you say that.”

The corner of Tony’s lip twitches. “You’re totally texting Rhodey about this later, aren’t you?”

“Why ask me if you already know you’re right?”

Tony pretends to shove him off his shoulder. Peter simply sticks a hand to the back of Tony’s neck with a single peal of laughter.

“Remind me not to replace the next backpack you lose on patrol. We’ll see who’s laughing then.”

Peter throws himself backward with a roll of his eyes. He pillows his head with his hands and shifts his thigh to the left to nudge the side of Tony’s leg. Unconsciously, Tony’s hand comes down to rest on the kid’s knee.

“It’s hard to go to church, sometimes,” Peter admits after a few beats of companionable silence. The faint pattering of raindrops has slacked off into a drizzle.

“Why’s that? Not your cup of tea?”

“It used to be. I used to--I wouldn’t say I _liked_ it, but it used to be easy.”

Tony seems to chew this over. “I went through a period in the nineties where everything I believed in seemed meaningless.”

Peter probably nods. Tony can’t be sure, since his eyes are transfixed on his own thumb rubbing figure eights over the frayed knee of the kid’s jeans.

“It still isn’t easy, even now,” Tony goes on. “You keep--you keep thinking about all the things that He’s _supposed_ to be powerful enough to do, but chooses not to do anyway.”

Peter forces out another noisy breath through his nostrils. “I stopped believing two years ago.”

Tony doesn’t have to bend over backwards to do the mental math. Many things happened to Peter Parker when he was fourteen. Monumental things, things whose weight is too recondite to be described even in the vocabulary of an adult who has been well acquainted with storms and the sting of acid rain in his eyes.

“Maybe ‘stopped believing’ is a little too harsh. I dunno. I guess. You could say it just...got hard to keep believing at that point? Because I actually try. It’s not like--I don’t...God.” Peter sounds like he’s scrubbing a free hand over his brow and his eyes. His voice barely bubbles back up to the surface when he speaks again. “It’s not like I want to push Him away...you know? I don’t have anger. I don’t, I don’t--I don’t think I could hate anybody, except maybe myself. I just--” A quiet hitch in his lungs. “I wanted Him to embrace me, but He never did.”

Tony’s thumb stills in its figure eights. The grace of his hand wants to curl into a fist.

“And to me, that felt the same as pushing me away.”

“Because when it’s God pushing you away, how do you come back?” Tony finishes for him in a whisper.

“Yeah. Kind of. Exactly.” The energy in Peter’s hand rubbing his eyes over and over is frenetic, silently discordant.

“Bad things happen to good people,” Tony mutters with little conviction. “It--it happens all the time.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier to understand.”

Tony makes a noise in the back of his throat. Maybe it’s assent, maybe it’s merely acknowledgment.

“May has a gift, I guess. She’s able to believe without understanding. I mean, she--she picked up the rosary and the little prayer book the day after...he…” Peter swallows. “Died.”

Tony tilts his head up at the sky at that. One of the clouds--cumulonimbus--is rolling back before the sheet of tentative rose gold that scuds over the heavens in its face. It’s funny, he thinks, how he can almost understand exactly where May is coming from.

“You’d think she’d’ve burned all that the night she saw his body. I mean, that’s the normal reaction, right? I thought...I thought--”

There’s that familiar coloring of shame creeping into the kid’s tone. Tony’s stomach wrings itself a little. Pushing down the bitterness in his throat, he glances back at the boy over his shoulder.

“What did you think, buddy?”

Peter pushes himself back up into a sitting position. He curls his legs into a criss-cross in front of him; it isn’t lost on Tony how careful he is not to disturb the man’s hand still resting on his left knee. Tony helps him a little by not lifting his fingers from where they’ve created a little pocket of warmth in the folds of Parker’s jeans.

Peter murmurs: “I always thought May would be the kind to get angry at God. She’s--she’s sweet, and good, and passionate, and--and--at the same time, she’s always ready to hurl this ball of anger at anyone who hurts the ones she loves.”

Tony chuckles. “I know.”

“I know.”

Tony shifts so he can rest his back against the top of the buttress. Regrettably, he has to release his hold on Peter’s knee, but he taps his chest to retract the nanonites completely before swinging his jean-clad legs up to rest over the kid’s. A smile jerks across the boy’s face, as if caught unawares. He runs one of his narrow fingers over Tony’s red Converse--a memory of the day they’d gotten matching pairs at the outlet mall upstate and sketched hideous Avengers designs in Sharpie all over the fabric.

“Maybe May understood something the day he died,” Tony says. “Understand, as in...she understood the limit of what there is to understand. And how little you can control.”

Peter unknots and re-knots the shoelace on Tony’s left shoe. “Is that why you believe?”

“Maybe. Sometimes I don’t know. I just do.”

“Because there’s nothing else holding it all together.”

“Maybe,” Tony says again. He fixes a look then on the side of Peter’s face, a look so intense and unreadable that the boy has to glance up to meet his mentor’s eyes. The next several words feel nearly like a vision. As if they oughtn’t to be uttered, yet both Peter and Tony know they are true, and so there is no choice left but to say them aloud--out here against the low whistle of the wind and a damp sunset rolling in their direction. 

Tony unknots the shoelace on his other shoe. “You’re one of the things that hold my life together, Pete. You, Pepper, Rhodey, May, Happy. Only people can hold a life together. So what’s the point of believing in a higher power if I’ve got you guys, right? If I--I decided a long time ago...if I don’t believe, then I have no choice but to think that chance brought you all into my circle.”

Tony draws a deep breath. Peter starts to re-knot the shoelace with slow, shaking fingers.

“I don’t think I could ever trust chance to keep you all around me. Only God could do that.”

Peter doesn’t know how to feel about that statement. There are layers he wants to peel back--things that surprise him, please him, or rub him the wrong way--but today is not the day for that.

“I understand what you’re saying,” Peter huffs out. “Like, I _get_ it. But I don’t...I can’t. It doesn’t feel right for me.”

“And that’s okay, bud. I promise.”

The air is sucked out from Peter in a rush. It should feel like relief. So why does he feel desperate? Aged? Boneless?

“I want it to feel right,” he chokes out. He doesn’t remember when the back of his throat got so wet and clogged up. “I want it to. Eventually. I don’t _like_ this, Mr. Stark. It’s like--it’s like--”

Tony nods once at him and continues staring at him to continue, the picture of patience.

Peter rambles on. “Ned and I had a fight once. We were in seventh grade. We didn’t talk to each other for, like, two weeks. Which sounds so stupid now that I say it aloud, but...that made it to my list of worst times ever.”

“It’s not stupid. That does sound rough, kid. I know you guys were close.”

“It was stupid,” Peter contradicts him, without any heat behind it. “We weren’t actually anywhere near as close then as we are now. But it was like...okay, you know how when you date someone and you form a really strong connection, and then you have to break it off, and it feels like, oh my God, how did you ever survive without this person in your life?”

Tony’s mind flits to the broken shape of Pepper’s eyes as she cried.

“But then it’s super ironic, because, like, you also think to yourself, you _survived_ without this person before in your life. So you gotta keep telling yourself that it’s not ideal right now, and maybe you changed because of them, but you _will_ go back to surviving without them again. Still, you got a taste of life with them, and you have to be honest and admit to yourself that it was so much better _with_ them in it.”

Damn. Tony uncrosses his ankles and pushes the soles of his Converse against Peter’s thigh.

“Maybe that’s a little dramatic,” Peter backpedals. “But like, it was similar with Ned, I guess. We were fighting over something so freaking _stupid_ , and then suddenly we weren’t talking anymore, and I had all these thoughts about how I survived before without him, but trying to do that again absolutely _sucked_ and there was no reason in the entire world why I would have to go back to that.”

“So you went back to him and talked to him.”

Peter confirms: “So I went back and talked to him.”

Tony strokes his chin, trying to follow the metaphor Peter’s used to represent another metaphor. “You feel the same way about God?”

The kid’s answering nod is shaky. Lacking any confidence or eye contact. “I could survive without Him. So many people do. But life could be better with Him in it. It _should_ be better with Him in it--you know? I just feel that, you know? But I don’t know how to go back and talk to Him. The two weeks...the two weeks, it’s turned into two years.”

“Maybe you need to figure out what started your fight with Him.”

“That’s the thing.” Peter stops playing with the shoelaces and drops his head into his hands. “We’re not fighting. I don’t know what’s wrong. He was just there, and then suddenly--suddenly He’s _not_.”

Those three words, those three simple words, feel like the arc reactor being wrenched from Tony’s chest all over again.

He pokes his toe again at the inside of Peter’s leg. “Why do you think He’s gone?”

“Because I’m unremarkable. Ungrateful. Neither good nor bad, just somewhere in the middle...which is the worst place to be.”

Tony’s chest is swirling with emotions. Where does he even begin to address all these untruths? But the thing that astonishes him the most is the lack of Peter mentioning how he is to blame for Ben’s death. Some progress, and yet it’s progress pained and hampered down by all the other lies that crowd the kid’s brain. Lies that are perhaps a thousand times worse than the original one.

“Because I try to fight crime as a way to pay for my guilt,” Peter goes on. “Because I only scratch the surface of this thing called redemption. Because I think I’m doing a lot, but it’s never enough, because it’s not done with the right intentions.”

And then he tacks on in a whisper: “Because I’m gay.”

“Oh, _kid_.” Fuck. _Fuck_.

Peter has the courage to look up at him, and his eyes are shining and wet. Tony thinks just then that this is the bravest his kid has ever been.

There are questions there, yearning to burst from the depths of Peter’s eyes. Questions too broad for words, too excruciating for tears. Too complex to be appeased with an embrace.

Why did He make me this way?

Why am I wrong?

Why is it never enough?

And the worst of them all: why didn’t He make me so it would be easy to love Him?

“Peter,” Tony says. “Come here.”

He does. He untangles his legs from Tony’s and inches up the edge of the roof on his knees until he’s facing Tony, just half a breath away. Tony closes the gap by drawing him into his chest.

“I’ve never told a soul about this, but...in 1992, I had a relationship with a guy.”

There’s a sharp movement of Peter’s damp curls under Tony’s chin as the boy jerks his head up at him. Tony was expecting the shock. He may have told Peter he’s bisexual, but finding out he actually acted on his attraction to men is quite another matter in itself.

“I grew up Catholic, just like you.”

Peter hums in remembrance.

“That’s probably part of why I was so adamant about keeping it a secret. Or maybe it was more because my parents had just...died. I was spiraling. Rhodey knew it; Obi knew it. The press knew it. Everyone knew except my own damn self. I was drinking, partying, sleeping around. Mixing pills with alcohol. All somewhat out of character, but not unexpected for the brat who inherited a multi-million company.” Tony snorts humorlessly. “But letting anyone know about my relationship with a guy? That...that was different. That was off-limits.”

Slowly, Peter curls an arm across Tony’s stomach. Perhaps he understands.

“They’d take it and turn it into another meaningless tabloid about Stark’s heir gone off the rails. ‘Experimenting,’ you know? Just another symptom of celebrity arrogance gone wrong. I--” Tony stops himself before the choke can cloud his voice. He resumes in a lower tone. “It wasn’t-- _that_. I was scared, Parker. Because it meant so much more than that to me.”

“’Course,” Peter murmurs. “It’s a part of you.”

“Well, that. But also because he actually meant something to me, you know?”

Peter has a flash of clarity. “You didn’t want them tossing it back in your face when it was actually different from your drinking and the women or, or the drugs. He wasn’t...a coping mechanism.”

Tony shakes his head. “He wasn’t.”

“He was more like your tether in the middle of it all.”

“Would you look at that, kid. There is a poet inside that spandex, after all.”

Peter digs his fingers into Tony’s ribs. The man yelps breathlessly at the tickle. “What happened to you and him, Mr. Stark?”

Tony’s mouth twitches. “I didn’t make him understand why I kept him a secret.”

The mist is quiet. The sunset has come upon them with an abruptness of furor, like a wrath for being shrouded so long. The bloody waves of light are spilling too fast across the sky.

“He could have tried to understand, even if you weren’t able to express it at the time. You were...what, twenty-two?”

Tony grunts in confirmation. “It wasn’t his job to understand, Peter. He was just supposed to love me, and I was supposed to love him. And loving him meant telling him how I felt. Every part of it.”

Peter’s chewing his lip. Tony knows it without having to look down at the boy across his chest. 

Tony may not be crying, but the warble of his voice tells a different story when he speaks up again. “He was good for me. And he was _good_. He was the one who helped me understand I didn’t have to throw away what I believed in because of what I had with him. I mean, granted, it took me probably another decade at that point to actually get it, but at least he got the hammer going in my thick skull.”

“You do have a thick skull sometimes,” Peter grumbles.

“I take offense at that, Underoos. I have a thick skull _all_ the time.”

Tony can practically hear the eye-roll in the kid’s tone. “I wonder sometimes what I idolized in you as a kid.”

“A question for you to answer, kid, not me. I’m just the washed-up has-been engineer playing with million-dollar titanium alloy toys in his tower.”

“I would love to take a dissertation to your face with, like, ninety-five theses on why you’re _wrong_ ,” Peter retorts, “but I’m more invested in the story. Why did you...why do you say you didn’t have to throw away everything you believed in?”

“The existence of God isn’t locked up in my orientation, Pete. In my identity. It’s the other way around. If I weren’t so jaded at that age, I would have told him I thought he was sent to me by a higher power. I believe it _now_ , but it doesn’t matter because...he never got to hear it.”

“He probably understood more than you were able to say.”

“I guess. I hope so.”

“Is it...is it weird if I say at least you have Pepper now, Mr. Stark?”

“No.” Tony shakes his head vehemently. “Not weird at all. That’s part of the reason I believe God out there isn’t all that bad. Second chances are rare, Pete. _Rare_. And Pepper? She’s like a second first chance.”

“Yeah,” Peter whispers, almost to himself. “Yeah.”

Tony squeezes the kid’s shoulder with his hand. “But, listen, Spiderling. I meant what I said. Second chances are rare. You got something to say to Ned? You gotta say it. Don’t even stop to _think_ for a second about how wrong you think this makes you in front of some higher being’s eyes. You just take stock of your blessings and you seize them. Don’t let go. They may not come back again. And then...and then eventually, everything else you’re struggling with? It’ll work out.”

Under any other circumstances, Peter would probably have reddened at the mere mention of Ned’s name. But his mind is laden with the abundance of words his mentor has laid upon him. Words. Words. Someday, he thinks, they’ll have acquired meaning.

“Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

“I mean it.”

“I know. Can I ask you something, Mr. Stark?”

Tony knocks his chin against the top of the kid’s head in silent permission.

“What was… _his_ name?”

Tony stops for a second, and then the next thing he knows, he’s fighting back a breathless laugh. When he finally answers, Peter understands.

“His name was Jesús.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Oof, my chest physically hurt as I was writing this. Probably because I was listening to the two theme songs on repeat and a) they have so much personal meaning to me, b) “Oh Brother” genuinely sounds so quietly epic that I could imagine it being the soundtrack to the end of a Marvel movie, and c) i’m a phd student in literature who just gets unnecessarily emotional about gratuitous parallels and motifs n shit like storms?? i’m a smol and fragile nerd don’t @ me
> 
> (This rant’ll make more sense when you see the title for Part II, I promise)
> 
> To be clear, I headcanon Peter as bisexual, but I just made him call himself “gay” as a sort of umbrella term because it felt more verisimilar and natural for him to say. This is obviously set after [Fragile and Composed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15623904/chapters/36277818), where Peter came out to Tony as a result of being bullied.
> 
> As always, I’m nervous about presenting my vulnerabilities in my fic writing but even more unbelievably excited to know what you think! Please leave comments, screams, rants, kudos, questions, whatever your heart desires!!
> 
> My latest fic: [Till the Concrete Angel Falls](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135538) (Young!Rhodey helping young!Tony through a panic attack at MIT)


	2. 'Cause a Storm Is Bound to Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Ned thinks he’s too short for him? What if he thinks it’s a joke and starts laughing in Peter’s face right then and there? Not meaning to be hurtful or anything...which would arguably be even worse than any malicious intent… Or what if Ned has realized he’s not _actually_ gay in the five or so weeks since he came out to Peter? Or, _or_ \--what if Ned just said that to show solidarity with his bi disaster of a best friend--or what if--
> 
> “Dude. I can totally hear you overthinking over there and not listening to me. Could you, like, tone it down a bit?”
> 
> “Uh. Sorry.” That uber-rational section of Peter’s brain decides that the only way to cover up his embarrassment is to deflect with another layer of embarrassment, namely cramming the largest piece of pizza possible into his mouth.
> 
> “Oh, yeah. You should probably also try to breathe, too.”
> 
> It takes another half a minute for Peter to gulp down what was in his mouth. “I’m _trying_ , man.”
> 
> Ned snickers into his mushroom slice. “Okay, okay. Come on, Peter. Just spit it out.”
> 
> Peter furrows his brow at him. “But I just swallowed it.”
> 
> “Not the _pizza_ , oh my God, you idiot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So I totally had something sober and slightly angsty planned for this second part to match the tone of the first one, but it turns out my brain absolutely cannot process anything serious when aliens are involved. Good heavens. KC couldn't help writing mindless bants and fluff this time around, folks. Call a doctor. He must be concussed.
> 
> Theme song and title inspiration: ["Untitled" by Paper Route](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qsOusYXuJM) (this is the same song I dedicated to my fiancée, so it has special meaning to me and all that jazz)
> 
> Warnings: Peter cusses. A lot. Hey, he's a teenage Gen Z vigilante and this is written from his perspective.

“May, blue or green?”

May serves him a look over the top of her gold-wire glasses. She sips primly at what is left of her homemade pumpkin spice latte. “For the last time, Peter, blue.”

“You’re just saying that because you know it’s my favorite.”

“If it’s your favorite, why even bother comparing it to the green? Honestly, your skin tone looks a little sallow in that one. Especially when you’re nervous.”

“May,” Peter all but whines. “ _You’re_ the one who bought it.”

She squints at her nephew with a raised brow. “Because it was seventy percent off and they were out of the blue version. Which just proves that you should be wearing that blue top if today is that important to you.”

Peter thrusts both plaid button-ups in her general direction with a distinctly teenage desperation. “But the green looks newer!”

“Do you really think Ned’s gonna give a crap about that? Just be yourself.”

Peter almost chokes right then and there in the middle of the kitchenette on the snorting laugh that ambushes him. “Fine,” he moans after a second of recovering himself. “Blue it is, then. But if he fails to realize this is a date because this is the exact same shirt I wore on that field trip when I barfed all over him, then I’m blaming you.”

“Kid, the only reason he wouldn’t realize this is a date is if you don’t tell him.”

Tony’s dry voice from the living room couch makes the boy freezes mid-button, resulting in a surreal pose with one arm bent unnaturally over the top of his head and half out of his sleeve. Peter finally gathers the wherewithal to yank the rest of his button-up on and points a shaky finger in the man’s direction. “He was supposed to have left! May, why is he still here?”

“Wow, Spiderling. You really think I stopped by just for a cup of Aunt Ciabatta’s homemade brew?” Tony stands up and leans against the arm of the couch to offer a clearer gesture of apology at May. “No offense.”

May rolls her eyes. “None taken.” She reaches back to twist her overgrown layers into a bun, and when she casts about fruitlessly for a chopstick to hold it together, Peter steps forward and hands her two pencils from the mug on the counter.

Peter leans against the tiny dining table with his arms folded, unconsciously matching his mentor’s pose. “You’re not here to help me. You just wanna watch me get embarrassed.”

Tony aims a finger gun at him with a click of his tongue. “Spot on. Although, for the record, I agree with the blue shirt too.”

“That’s because this is your favorite outfit on me.”

“Huh, would you look at that. The adults _actually_ know what they’re talking about.”

May snorts over her last mouthful of latte. 

Peter squints at her. “You’re so--so-- _complicit_.”

Tony moves forward, plucks the mug from May’s hand and sets it in the sink along with the rest of the dishes. As he flicks on the water to rinse the dessert plates, he turns to Peter. “So, this ought to be a story for the blackmail annals. When did you finally ask him out?”

Peter attempts to hide his swiftly reddening face by crowding into Tony’s space and shooing the man away from the sink. “I...I didn’t?” he says lamely.

“You--you--”

“He is a backwards child,” is May’s crisp reply from behind them. Tony, having given up on insisting on washing the dishes, saunters over to join her at the counter. 

“In my defense, I haven’t had the chance to talk to him properly all week. Finals are coming in two weeks, so we were in study hall for a while, where we’re supposed to be _studying_ , not talking about _dates_ \--and then everybody was full attendance at decathlon practice, so we didn’t have a moment alone, and then there was that one day he came down with the stomach bug so I couldn’t even call him or anything with him in that condition--”

“You did call him. Three times. To yell embarrassingly inaccurate WebMD diagnoses in his ear.” May pushes the glasses to the top of her head with a sweet, traitorous smile.

Peter flings up his hands, spraying soap suds everywhere. Tony finds himself wiping foam from his goatee with a strained expression, caught somewhere between exasperation and eternal amusement.

“So I’ll ask him out tonight! It can’t be that hard, right?”

Tony coughs conspicuously into the elbow of his jacket, and that’s enough of an answer for the kid.

“Just you wait, Mr. Stark. We’re gonna go out to his favorite pizza place, and by the end of the night I’ll have got myself a boyfriend.”

“Sure, kid. Will that be before or after the Lego-building marathon?”

Peter ceases scrubbing the drinking glass in his hand in favor of craning his neck backward to glare at a spot in Tony’s general vicinity. It has about as much efficacy as a Japanese Spitz puppy throwing a fit.

“...After,” he finally admits. “May, please send Mr. Stark home.”

“That’s a load of nonsense, Peter. I’m having way too much fun.”

Tony drains his mug and rounds the counter to set it down in the sink. He lays his free hand on Peter’s shoulder. “C’mon, Pete. You shouldn’t be playing with water in your first-date outfit. Lemme take care of this while you go practice pick-up lines with your aunt.”

“As much as I cherish the notion of Tony Stark doing my twenty-year-old Corelle dishes by hand, I’ll have to take over,” says May. “I don’t think I could get through one line without giving myself stitches. Tony, you go help the kid practice. Also, there’s fresh hair gel in the second drawer in the bathroom.”

After only a nominal objection, Tony twirls to face Peter with a conspiratorial smirk. As he presses both hands to the kid’s shoulders and shepherds him through his room and into the Jack-and-Jill bathroom, he whispers, “We can leave the curls alone, don’t you think? Aunt Killer Coffee doesn’t have to know.”

“Only if I get to blame you one hundred twelve percent for it afterward. I’m only looking to die once tonight, Mr. Stark.”

“C’mon, Underoos. Look alive. You’d think you were going to your execution and not about to ask out the love of your life. It can’t be that bad.”

\--

Oh, but it is bad. So very bad.

Ned has been waxing passionate about the original concept art of Padmé’s costume design while Peter shovels chunks of pepperoni pizza into his mouth, barely hearing a word his best friend is saying. His head is trapped in a bubble of anxiety--and not even the fruitful kind, the type he gets when he’s about to face off with a criminal or a bully and the nervous energy teams up with his spidey sense to ramp up his reaction times. Nope. None of that here. Now he’s floating in that space between vomit-inducing excitement and downright dread, and Ned’s voice reaches him as if through the glass barriers of a fishbowl.

I like you. I, like, like-you-like-you.

Why are those words so damn hard to say? It’s moments like this when Peter actually prays to the patron saint of Parker luck to just re-activate his gift of word vomiting so he can get this over with. Because the longer he clutches at the words and turns them over and over behind his teeth, the more bitter and stupid they start to taste on his tongue and the more disastrous scenarios spring up in his accursedly active imagination.

Such as: what if Ned thinks he’s too short for him? What if he thinks it’s a joke and starts laughing in Peter’s face right then and there? Not meaning to be hurtful or anything...which would arguably be even worse than any malicious intent… Or what if Ned has realized he’s not _actually_ gay in the five or so weeks since he came out to Peter? Or, _or_ \--what if Ned just said that to show solidarity with his bi disaster of a best friend--or what if--

“Dude. I can totally hear you overthinking over there and not listening to me. Could you, like, tone it down a bit?”

“Uh. Sorry.” That uber-rational section of Peter’s brain decides that the only way to cover up his embarrassment is to deflect with another layer of embarrassment, namely cramming the largest piece of pizza possible into his mouth.

“Oh, yeah. You should probably also try to breathe, too.”

It takes another half a minute for Peter to gulp down what was in his mouth. “I’m _trying_ , man.”

Ned snickers into his mushroom slice. “Okay, okay. Come on, Peter. Just spit it out.”

Peter furrows his brow at him. “But I just swallowed it.”

“Not the _pizza_ , oh my God, you idiot.”

“Hey! Don’t go around calling your best friends idiots when you’re the one being _oh-so-clear_.”

“Okay, fine, whatever. I was referring to whatever it is that’s on your mind. It’s been bothering you all night, even since we finished up building. I wasn’t going to say anything, but then you just gave me a totally blank stare when I mentioned Season 12 of _Project Runway_ and, honestly? That just creeped me out. So I figured, this has gotta be serious. And if it’s serious, then I--”

“ _Ned_.” Jeez, people weren’t exaggerating when they told Peter that his nervous rambles were migraine-inducing. “Ned, I--uh. Well, first off, I’m sorry about ignoring you. I’m not, I swear. Well, I mean, I guess I was kind of ignoring you, but not intentionally! It’s just that I’ve been hella nervous and I don’t know how to tamp it down even a little. I know this is the first time we’ve hung out in literally eons, and it’s super important to me to not mess this up because--”

“Less hand-gesturing, more actual explaining,” Ned cuts in gently. His hands are crossed over his stomach and he’s leaning back in the booth now with a twinkle in his squinty dark eyes.

“I’m _trying_ , you dork.”

“You’re the dork. I’m the doofus.”

“Same difference.”

“So what’s the second thing?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘first of all.’ That usually means you have at least three or four other things to talk about after your super lengthy introduction.”

“My introductions are not lengthy.”

“Yeah, they are. They’re, like, all the drafts of the Preamble to the Constitution put together. I swear if you were this nervous on the SATs, you wouldn’t have gotten past the first body paragraph of your essay.”

“I write very moving and beautifully structured sandwich essays, thank you very much.” Peter flings a piece of fried chicken wing batter at Ned’s head.

Ned grins. “See, this is the part where you quibble with me, hoping that I’ll be distracted from the second thing you have to say. That must mean it’s hella important.”

And just like that, Peter’s face is flushing again, and he’s cursing whatever fairy godmothers he pissed off to deserve such a traitorous body that does absolutely shit to hide his nervous tics.

“It is important,” he finally concedes in a mumble. Oh, eye contact is way too uncomfortable right now. He’d much rather study the shriveled mushroom left on the platter between them. Yeah, that’s way more fascinating and in no way intimidating compared to Ned’s eyes. Those dark, round, expressive _button eyes_ that are so _fucking_ cute he could almost die every time he--

“You’re doing it again.”

“Am not.”

“Are too. No cuddles for you later if you don’t spill now.”

“But how is that remotely fair? You don’t _do_ movie marathons without even a tiny little sort of cuddle at some point.”

Ned simply takes a drink of his Sprite with an obnoxiously loud slurp through his straw.

After a few more seconds of loaded silence during which Peter stares incredulously at Ned, he finally caves. He slumps forward, wringing his hands under the table like some goddamn grandmother character in a folktale, and gulps in a breath before taking the plunge. “Okay, okay, okay. Okay. I’m just gonna out and say it. The thing is, it’s important, this second thing, and this second thing I was gonna tell you was that--”

 _Boom_.

His spidey sense doesn’t even have enough time to shriek at him before the explosion so rudely interrupts his confession. Glass sprays everywhere. Peter only has about two percent of his brain spared from adrenaline or pure panic to realize dimly how grateful he is that at least they got to finish all their pizza. RIP, pineapple mango juice.

And then there’s that telltale whine of alien technology revving from somewhere worrisomely close by. Oh, fucking hell.

“--that aliens are here,” Peter finishes lamely. He wastes about one more second glancing up at Ned to make sure the other boy is uninjured, and then he’s vaulting over the table to tackle him to the floor just before the second alien grenade hits.

“Jesus fucking Christ on a fucking bicycle.” Peter doesn’t even register the fact that he has adopted one of Tony’s pet expletives for specific situations like this. _This_ being date night interrupted by the most inconsiderate ambushes ever.

As his senses clear and he begins to be able to see more than shadows again through the haze of smoke and smashed tile dust, Peter feels the body beneath him break out into fine tremors. Oh, God. Ned. Did he--?

“Ned. Ned. _Ned_. Are you hurt? I’m so sorry I had to grab you like that, there was no warning but I felt the thing was about to go off--”

“ _Dude_. Are you fucking kidding me? That was the coolest thing that’s ever happened in my _life_.”

“No,” Peter says sternly. “ _Not_ cool. Dangerous. You hear me? _Dangerous_. We need to get you outta here now.”

“Okay, but can I just say first? The expression on your face, man. When you jumped over the entire table to tackle me--I swear to God, it was like a lion came out of you or something. Never seen that kind of determination--”

“Yeah, you have. Right before the jalapeño challenge.” Peter yanks Ned to his feet, pats him down cursorily for injuries, and uses one hand on the back of his friend’s head to make him duck as they jog toward the back of the pizzeria.

“You held that expression for about 0.3 seconds before you realized you were gonna lose. Miserably.”

Somebody groans from somewhere by their feet. Peter jerks backward with a yelp. It’s one of the employees drifting back to consciousness where he’s slumped behind the counter, a gash on his forehead seeping a pathway of blood that cuts through the sheetrock dust on his face.

“Shit,” Peter mutters. “Uh, raincheck on the discussion of your totally inaccurate and revisionist history of events.” He tugs off his button-up and is about to ball it up like a rag when Ned grabs his arm.

“ _Not_. The blue shirt.”

“W-what?” Pete glances at him, hoping the leap in pitch in his voice isn’t that noticeable.

Ned is already shedding his own maroon hoodie. “Here. I don’t care if this one gets ruined.”

“Well, _I_ do--”

“Peter!” Ned forces a sigh through his nose. “Just take it. Anything but your shirt.”

“Well, I guess the adults were right about one thing…” Mollified, Peter takes the balled-up hoodie and presses it to the guy’s head. “Sir? Sir! Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

It takes a few more seconds of finger-snapping and reluctant face-slapping before the man blinks to full coherence. When he does, he scrambles to his feet immediately, despite Peter’s frantic protests.

“There’s a basement through those doors,” the man talks over Peter. “If whatever’s going on is still going on in the streets, everything’ll be exploded by now. The best thing is to hunker down underground.”

Peter shares a heavy look with Ned. Underground. He personally doesn’t like the slimy sensation of queasiness that unleashes in his gut, but the man is right. If he’s trying to run around outside and battle aliens while also searching for decent cover for Ned, both missions will be compromised. And right now, Ned’s safety is his utmost priority.

“C’mon, bring it in.” Peter yanks Ned forward in a crushing embrace that feels like it lasts less than two seconds. When he pulls back, he’s schooled his visage as best he can into a mask of calm. Confidence. That special Spider-Man grade of snark and determination. He could have sworn he didn’t imagine the flicker of awe that fills Ned’s face just then.

“Hey! Kid! Where you going?!”

Peter doesn’t reply. He jogs toward the shambles that used to be the front door, and he only glances back once to flash a peace sign at Ned. “Stay underground. Do _not_ come out, no matter what you hear, okay? I’ll be back for you in no time.”

 _I love you_.

 _Not now, stupid lovesick teenage brain hyped up on adrenaline_.

Normally Peter wouldn’t risk donning his suit so close to civilians, but the fog of destruction is still so impervious to normal human eyes that he doubts anyone glimpses him now as he pulls on his mask, slaps on his webshooters and swings out of there.

Peter yelps as something hums and zooms past him, slicing through the string of web that’s holding him to the apartment building next door. He lands a bit heavily against the brick facade and breathes out a cuss of gratitude for sticky fingers. “Karen?”

It’s a testament to the direness of the situation that even the AI skips past the normal pleasantries and replies with a simple: “Connecting to FRIDAY’s comms now.”

“Hey, Iron Man’s here?”

“Yes, Peter. So is Colonel Rhodes.”

“Holy shit! War Machine came, too?” Another boom sounds faintly in the distance, and Peter wastes no time in webslinging his way along the path of destruction left by the alien… _thing_ that has just crash-landed on earth.

Hyper-focused now, Peter’s spidey sense pings just in time for him to swing wide round the other side of some poor soul’s penthouse a second and a half before a ball of glowing alien tech comes careening into view. Peter performs a stomach-lurching double flip in its direction to kick it at full velocity down toward the emptiest street below. Thank God that the civilians have all scurried for cover. The grenade of sorts hurtles down at breakneck speed and crashes into what appears to be a manhole. There’s a single sliver of a second that seems to stretch out for eternity, and then the sewer implodes in a spectular rain of water and concrete. 

“Nice save, kid,” comes Tony’s voice over the crackle of the comms.

Peter starts a little. He jerks his head up: now he can see the streak of crimson and gold up ahead, twirling around the alien--spaceship? for lack of a better word--and discharging strategically aimed explosives from the canons in his shoulders.

“Mr. Stark! Uh, thanks. How long you been out here?”

“Only just arrived, kiddo. I assumed you did, too?”

“Yup!” Pete shoots a rounded web to catch the next grenade and harnesses its momentum to send it boomeranging back at the ship. It barely dents the side of whatever insanely dense material the thing is made of. “Sorry about the sewage system back there, by the way. I hate to have to give the DPW more work than they already have.”

A sigh sounds out over the comms. Rhodey? “This kid, Tones.”

“Precious, isn’t he?” Tony quips back. “Better the sewer than the apartments, Pete. Or the cars parked out there.”

“Honestly, I don’t think us superheroes are doing any good to drive insurance rates down.”

“Blame the aliens, not the-- _motherfucker_! Shoot the door before anything comes out!”

Rhodey’s already a step ahead, blasting the entrance Tony’s indicated, where something seemed to have been opening. “A child’s ears are on these comms, Tony.”

“Holy fucking--fucked up--fuckery!” Peter gasps out, as he swings closer to the ship only to collide with a vaguely humanoid figure flying straight at him. It must have slipped through the hatch before Rhodey sealed it shut. The two grapple wildly in the air, traveling purely on momentum (and weird alien rage, probably) before Peter feels them begin to plummet. He blocks the alien’s next punch and simultaneously shoots with his other hand. His heart lurches when his blind shot with a web finds no purchase.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says again. Maybe a little too articulately for his current near-death (read: still in danger of death) situation.

Peter kicks with all his strength, knocking the breath from the alien and loosening its grip on his throat and shoulders enough for him to get a clear shot at the nearest building. He slings for it with desperation. When the web sticks and he feels that familiar harsh tug of tension on his arm, Pete feels as though he could weep with relief.

“Pete! Is everything okay?”

The boy takes a moment to switch to taser webs and take down the alien before responding. The excitement in his veins has solidified to a grim coldness. “All good,” he breathes out heavily. “That was one nasty f--”

“Ah, ah, ah, that’s enough.” All of a sudden Tony’s there, hovering near where Peter is clinging to the building’s facade by his hands and knees. “Injuries?”

“Just winded,” Peter reports truthfully. “And almost became alien pancake for dinner. They’ve got a nasty grip. Be careful with the teeth.”

“Yeah, well, hopefully we won’t even get to the point of coming face to face with their half-ass dentures. Oh, by the way, you do know you have a parachute option, right? Hold up. Where the hell is the rest of your suit?”

“In my backpack. At the pizza place...somewhere.” Peter gestures vaguely behind him.

“I’m not even--good _God_.” If Tony could be pinching the bridge of his nose right now in a portrait of middle-aged parental exasperation, he would. “Go home, Peter. You’re not fighting in that condition.”

“But Mr. Stark, I have--”

“No. _No_. Go _home_.”

Peter gestures wildly about. “But the alien saucer spaceship thingy!”

“Uh…” Rhodey’s concern bleeds into the comms. “Tony, we’ve got a situation here.”

“Keep a lid on the situation, then. I’ll be there in thirty seconds. You, kid. Go home. Stop worrying about the saucer ship and make sure you and May and your boyfriend are safe.” 

“He’s not even my boyfriend!” Peter yells at Iron Man’s retreating figure. “...Yet!”

“Peter, you should listen to Tony. We’re just wrapping up here.”

“Mr. Rhodey, you just said there’s a situation!” True to form, Peter swings haphazardly in the direction of Tony’s thrusters and aims a couple of explosive webs at the UFO.

Which--surprise, surprise--has suddenly decided to start lifting off back into the sky.

Peter is about to comment something witty and jovial about the aliens’ apparent decision to retreat from earth (whether because they are overwhelmed or because they are simply bored), when a shrill voice cuts through his thoughts.

“Peter! _Peter!_ I’m being beamed up!”

That’s Ned. That’s Ned’s voice. 

Peter doubts he has any other brain cells left to produce anything coherent beyond that.

In a split second, Peter shoots several ropes of webbing to four or five different buildings around, grasping the ends in one hand, and with the other hand he aims a web at Ned’s ankle. He needn’t worry about freefalling at the point, because the sheer force of the cerulean-tinted beam aimed down at them from the UFO is drawing him upward with about as much gravitational pull as half a sun, probably. Peter gasps at the sudden strain on his left bicep, the one that is still attached to the buildings on the ground. Distractedly he wonders if it’s even remotely possible to rip them up from the very roots of their foundations and still remain an intact Spiderling in the middle of this alien tug-of-war.

“Mr. Stark!” he rasps out. “Mr. Rhodey! A little help over here!”

“Already on it,” Tony shouts back. He swoops past in a gust by the side of Peter’s face and flings himself at the underbelly of the UFO with a clang. Rhodey seems slightly occupied to the side, eliminating the two or three other gangly-looking creatures that have somehow materialized on the ground.

Whatever it is Tony’s doing with the flares shooting from his palms seems to be methodical but as yet ineffectual. He’s moved from one chink in the spaceship exterior to the next, perhaps burning off anything that resembles an energy source for the thing.

When Tony speaks again, it’s with that chilling calm that lets the boy know that something could go very, very wrong, but the man is unwilling to let even death itself claim any of them.

“Pete! You gotta let go. You’ll break something.”

“But Ned--”

“Let go of your webs,” Tony clarifies quickly. “Get Ned. I got you.”

Peter’s moment of indecision lasts all of two seconds. Finally, _finally_ , he releases the webs in his left hand. He’s completely unprepared for the mad vacuum of energy that sucks him upward toward the void on the underside of the spaceship.

Peter is unsure who is shrieking--if it’s him or Ned or quite possibly both of them--but at the very least, he’s got both arms wrapped around his best friend now and they can get beamed up together into the face of unknown alien terror.

Small mercies and all that.

And then the next thing he knows, his ears are exploding with a boom so forceful that he and Ned are flung backward at full speed to earth. Peter cracks open his eyes--when had he even closed them?--and frees one hand from his hold on Ned to sling a web at the nearest office building. The shot comes a little late; the two skid to a halt on the hot, dry asphalt, Peter bearing the brunt of the impact as Ned lies on top of him.

As if to add insult to injury, the flag insignia on the Bank of America sign that Peter slung his web to teeters for a second and then crash-lands into the sidewalk behind them.

“I’m telling you,” Rhodey tuts over the comms, “it sucks ass to be an insurance agent around here.”

Peter doesn’t respond. He doubts he even has the strength or the wits left to try. He vaguely registers Tony’s voice over the connection snarking something back at Mr. War Machine, and then Peter finds himself sitting up with his tongue heavy in his mouth as if disembodied. Half-paralyzed. 

“Ned,” he says aloud. Or does he? “Ned. Ned. Wake up. Are you okay? Ned.”

“Woah, woah, woah, I’m here. I’m okay. Peter! Do you see me? Pete. I’m okay. Everything’s okay. Holy--holy shit, you saved me!”

Peter is sitting up fully now. That much he can recognize. Ned’s amorphous silhouette begins to sharpen in front of him. Suddenly, with no warning, the tinnitus gives way to an onslaught of input that leaves Pete gasping for air.

Ned scrambles to get off Peter’s legs and knees the instant he recognizes a panic attack. Peter whines and grabs for him, only managing to snag Ned’s sleeve. “I’m fine. I’m fine,” he pants, more to convince himself than anyone else, really. “It’s all good.”

“Breathe, Peter.”

“I am--fucking--breathing.” Peter shuts his eyes for a few moments and marches his brain through the practiced motions: in for five beats, hold, out for another five beats. Hold. Repeat. After about six or seven cycles, he is able to open his eyes again and absorb his surroundings with marginally less biologically-enhanced-superhero-teenage freaking out.

Peter chokes on his next words. “N-Ned. You’re okay.”

The other boy nods back at him frenetically. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay. The spaceship is down. I think Mr. Stark and Mr. War Machine are heading over here right now. I saw the thing you did back there with the web net thing and I--”

Peter’s shaking. That’s the only thought that seems real to him at this moment. That, and the fact that he almost lost Ned to an alien void forever.

“You _fucking idiot_.”

Ned’s mouth snaps shut.

“Oh my God!” Peter is on his feet now. He rips off the mask. Wobbles on the pavement. The curbside tilts up perilously toward his vision, but an inexplicable lick of rage makes him barrel on. “What the _fuck_ were you thinking? I told you to stay in the basement and stay put, no matter what you heard! What the hell, Ned! What is so hard to understand about _stay safe and don’t go anywhere_? Oh my _God_. You could have died when you got beamed up. You could’ve gotten your head chopped off by those alien Gollums, or they could’ve tortured you with weird science experiments, or you could’ve gotten caught in the crossfire and gunned down or blown to bits in one of the grenade explosions, or--or--you could’ve--your lungs would have burst or something the instant you hit the stratosphere! _Pendejo_ \--”

“But I didn’t! You saved me! Look, Pete, there was another bomb thing that went off and the pizza place wasn’t safe anymore. Richard thought we should make a run for it and find better shelter away from the--”

“--So you fucking ran _toward_ the spaceship!”

“I needed to find you first!”

“You could have done that _after_ we took down the spaceship and killed all the aliens!”

Ned’s apology is, ironically, matched to Peter’s volume and pitch. “On second thought, that would have been a superior idea! But I panicked!”

“And this is exactly why I should never take you out on a date! Ever!”

“That is the worst Parker logic I have ever--hold up. Take me on a _what_?”

Peter suppresses a groan. A little distracting superhero landing by either Iron Man or War Machine right around now would be very nice.

“I should never take you outside,” he clarifies. “I’m bubble-wrapping you to the couch in the apartment starting now until forever.”

“I got that part,” says Ned, sounding oddly strained. “I didn’t exactly get the date part.” He’s got that mischievous glint in his dark eyes now that tells Peter that oh, yes, he did get the date part, and oh, no, he is not going to let this go until Pete owns up to it and offers a full explanation.

Peter splays his fingers over his face. “Can we just...I mean...look. I was working up the courage all day to ask you out--for the past, like, three years of my life, actually--and today was gonna be it, but then the aliens arrived, because they have just the absolute worst comedic timing in the entire universe, I swear to God, Thor could tell you all about aliens’ shit sense of humor...aaaand I’m rambling again.”

Ned reaches forward to lower Peter’s hands from his face. “You’re right, aliens do have a shit sense of humor.”

The giggle that bubbles up from behind Peter’s ribs just then is so ebullient and so unexpected that it hurts. He chokes a little. “They do, don’t they?” He swallows. “God, Ned, I’m so sorry.”

“Is it Ned or God? Choose one.”

“A guy tries to apologize…”

“Sorry, sorry. Carry on.” Miraculously, Ned still hasn’t let go of Peter’s hands. Instead, he has his wrists in a loose grip and is tracing one of Peter’s upturned palms with the pad of his thumb.

“I’m sorry for blowing up at you. And then almost having a complete meltdown in front of you.”

“Uh, nope, I’m closed for any and all apologies related to panic attacks. Those are not and never will be your fault. Besides, you were right, it was an idiot move to try to run toward you while you were in the middle of fighting a freaking UFO in the sky.”

“Yeah, you were kind of an imbecile, weren’t you?”

“Peter, I know this is your way of flirting with me, but I almost _died_.” Ned’s round eyes widen for comedic effect. “I was almost skewered on alien probes. You don’t ask me out like this when I’m shaken and vulnerable by calling me stupid.”

“Eh.” Peter flaps a free hand at him. “I saved your butt in just my mask and civvies, so I get a free pass.”

“ _Gago_.”

“ _Idiota_.” Peter yanks Ned close to him in a breathless embrace. Ned is giggling-- _giggling_ \--and Peter could either whoop him or kiss him from sheer annoyance right now.

On second thought, he decides to do just that. For once in his life, Peter doesn’t pause to overthink his decision. He grabs the front of Ned’s shirt in his fist and crashes his lips against Ned’s. The other boy gasps a little; and then both his hands loop around the back of Peter’s waist to pull him in close. Peter’s senses have crossed the threshold of haywire at this point. All he can hear and feel is the gallop of Ned’s heartbeat, the thrum of his heightened pulse. The smell of concrete and ash all around them--and the taste of his best friend’s lips, warm and soft and grounding. A little bit chapped, but just like home.

They finally pull away several moments later for a breather. Peter cups Ned’s cheeks in his hands and resists the urge to pinch them. How on earth did he just land a jackpot?

“Nobody,” he gasps out, “ _nobody_ puts baby on an alien spaceship.”

Ned’s face crumples into his ugly laugh. “Oh my _God_ , did you just Patrick Swayze me?”

“Don’t mock me. I can totally pick you up and toss you over my head,” Peter threatens.

Metallic boots stomp up from behind them. There’s another whir and clang as Tony’s faceplate retracts. “Don’t believe him, Ned. He’s about as scary as a chihuahua.”

Peter turns with the longest eye-roll in his life. He slings his arm over Ned’s shoulder. “ _Again_ with the puppy references? I’m not coming to the Compound anymore if you’re gonna disrespect me like this.”

Rhodey swoops down from the sky with a landing perhaps even more iconic than Tony’s. When he straightens and lifts his faceplate as well, the smirk all over his countenance could rival his best friend’s. “Usually you can count on me to back you up, Peter, but on this one I’m with Tones.”

“That’s War Machine.” Ned gapes. 

Peter shoots him a frown. “Dude. I just kissed the living daylights out of you and that’s what you take away from this?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, it was fantastic, but. That. That’s _Mr. War Machine_.”

Tony nudges Rhodey. “Told you these nerds were perfect for each other. Pay up, you cheapskate.”

It’s Peter’s turn to stare at them, bug-eyed. Ned, on the other hand, almost doubles over with laughter.

“Listen, Mr. War Machine,” he wheezes at Rhodey’s stricken expression. “In this life, thou yeetest or thou art yoinked.”

Peter cuffs him playfully upside of the head. “Verily, thou hast been yoink’d.” 

“Do _not_ turn my totally epic alien-beaming experience into a blackmail story. That was the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life and nothing you say will change your mind.”

“Uh, the day discovered I was Spider-Man?”

“That’s a close second.”

“I just asked you out.”

“Which I know you’ve been dying to do for the past three years.”

“...Dude!”

“Sorry, babe.”

“Okay, you won the jalapeño challenge.”

“Ohhh.” Ned taps his chin pensively. “Getting you to admit that _possibly_ contends with today, but...nah. Aliens beat all.”

“I’m recanting. Not asking you out after all. Can’t date a completely reckless and unremorseful hot mess. You could’ve _died_.”

“You’re right,” says Ned. “That sounds just like you.”

And if the two of them are still holding hands and bickering like old husbands the whole way back to the tower, neither Tony nor Rhodey mentions it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Some linguistic notes:
> 
>  _Pendejo_ : Spanish. Dumbass or dumb mofo.  
>  _Gago_ : Filipino. Dumbass.  
>  _Idiota_ : Spanish. This one's pretty self-explanatory.
> 
> And now you see where the title of this Interwebs series comes from! I've had that "nobody puts baby on an alien space ship" line up my sleeve for months now. *cackling*
> 
> I have nothing much else to say, except sorry once again for giving you whiplash with the sudden switch in tone and POV. Sometimes your fingers just start writing stuff you never planned, y'know? 
> 
> Also, shoutout to josywbu and Madelynn for always reading and making me cry with their comments. Sorry if I haven't replied yet because KC.exe has stopped working. I'll get back to you shortly!
> 
> By the way, here's a non-fandom thing that I did recently. It's a video poem I wrote and recorded for National Coming Out Day, in which I talk about my struggles being transgender: [Notes on a Gender I (Don't Yet) Understand](https://tinyurl.com/NotesOnAGender)
> 
> Please don't hesitate to leave your thoughts down below! Thanks and I love y'all! <3


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